“Is it still possible to be a child in 2025?” States the headline of Tintamarre’s new play, VICTOR ‘25. The show by Mt. A’s bilingual theatre troupe provides “a commentary on the authority, resistance to the structures that hold us in place,” and explores “the concept of childhood,” in the words of Ella Crowley, a third-year English student and an associate director of VICTOR ‘25.

This is not the first time Mt. A students will have a chance to follow the story of Victor’s birthday. Victor, ou les enfants au pouvoir was directed by Alex Fancy and staged at the Windsor Theatre in November 2000. This time, however, there is more than one audience to Roger Vitrac’s play. Max, his parents, and their cat, Coucou, have gathered on the couch in front of the home theatre Stargazer to watch an interpretation of Victor, ou les enfants au pouvoir, written in 1927. “It is Victor’s ninth birthday and he announces to the party that he is going to die tonight,” says Rafael Rezende Freire, a fourth-year computer science student and an associate director of VICTOR ‘25. The overworked parents decided to do a family movie night but were soon left horrified by what they were showing their child. At the same time, Max strongly identifies with Victor because “both feel that they don’t want to live in the same hypocritical world that their parents live in and feel that childhood does really exist anymore,” Crowley reflects.
As Freire comments, “Tintamarre’s trademark is a play within a play” and VICTOR ‘25 is no exception. Although, the creators did decide to take it in a different direction and develop the play within a play through the media of television. According to Freire, they want to explore “how we can incorporate a corporate view with an artistic view.” As Freire continues, “As an actor you have a creative vision you want to do but being forced by corporate overlords to do something else.”
One of Tintamarre’s distinguishing features is that their shows are written and performed in a mix of French and English. The rehearsals too are conducted in both languages, as per Fancy’s initial goal of bilingual theatre — to incorporate teaching French outside of a regular classroom and to “promote biculturalism and bilingualism both at Mount Allison University and beyond,” as it is described on the Drama Studies Database. Crowley points out that “there are no English or French scenes, the languages are woven together.” They further highlight the structure of bilingual theatre: “the script is built in a way that even if someone does not speak one of the languages, they still can understand what is happening based on the lines in the language they understand and context clues, but without translating every single line.”
A message from Freire to everyone coming to see the show in two weeks is to “keep an open mind to surrealism.” Sometimes what is happening on stage will not immediately make sense, but that is a part of the show. “Try to immerse yourself as much as possible and have fun, we’re just being silly on stage,” adds Freire.
VICTOR ‘25 will be on the Motyer-Fancy Theatre stage from February 5 to 8 at 7:30 p.m. You can find tickets on Eventbrite by using the following link:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/victor-25-motyer-fancy-theatre-tickets-1035208324967.